The Importance of a Dream
by psycotic-barbie
Summary: Nami begins to lose sight of her dream as a doctor and grows to be cynical in all aspects of her life, especially in the field of romance, will it take a patient who's lost his sight for her to see what really matters?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.

Just a side note: it's not that I don't update regularly, I just tend to do it less often than I would like to. To make up for it the chapters will be rather long.

Prologue

Though I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm not 'inherently' girly, it's pretty much common knowledge that if I can avoid anything frivolous I would go out of my way to do so. Bearing that in mind, it's also true to say that, while I would despise wearing a dress or 5 inch heels, every girl wonders what fortune awaits her on her wedding day and I'm no different. Does that make me fickle? To be so blatantly against anything remotely feminine and yet to have high expectations for a fairy-tale wedding…doesn't it seem inconsistent?

Normally, if someone were to call me a hypocrite, I would deliver a severely brain-damaging blow to the head, and being a doctor that also seems fairly contradicting of my nature…however in this instance I would put my prejudice aside and explain calmly that I've never in my life had this internal dispute on all things girlish before and so I'm just as shocked as any other person would be.

The most distressing notion of all is that if it weren't for that insufferable, poor excuse for a human being I would never be entertaining these ideas of marriage or even contemplating the existence of a 'soul mate', as he so naively put it. And to whom do I owe the honour of having to suffer the indignation of this misery that we call 'Holy Matrimony'?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.

Just a side note: it's not that I don't update regularly, I just tend to do it less often than I would like to. To make up for it the chapters will be rather long.

"Doctor, where have you been? We've been trying to page you all night; there was an accident, 20-25 critically injured..."

When my day begins with a nurse whose name I can't quite remember yelling at me for sleeping through my only day off, I know the rest of the day is going to be Hell, but like any other doctor I learn to suck it up and put on a brave face, only to be met with more disturbing problems at work to distract me from my unfortunate lack of a social life.

So while nurse no-name is prepping me on the situation, I can't help but wonder why there is an absence of the normal hustle and bustle of doctors and, for that matter, general hospital employees.

"Excuse me, nurse…er, might I inquire as to why the hospital is so empty, considering this 'accident' happened last night? Am I to assume everything has been taken care of?" I ask, mild irritation tainting my words, yet genuine curiosity peaked.

Nurse No-Name shuffles her feet nervously, as if I was not meant to question this apparent deficiency of staff. Curiouser and curiouser, she ignores my query, instead leading me into a pitch black examination room, the one we've reserved as 'haunted' for the purpose of fooling around (and contrary to popular belief, fooling around for us, sadly, denotes resting between each obnoxious patient).

The lights suddenly turn on, and a deafening chorus of "CONGRATULATIONS!" can be heard, though I'm still attempting to adjust to the extreme brightness that somehow has caused, to some extent, temporary deafness as well. I glance to my left to see if Nurse No-Name is having similar difficulties only to find her missing. As my sight slowly returns, I see most of the medical staff and Nurse No-Name standing behind the hospital bed, which has been used as a make-shift table to hold a cake that looks suspiciously like someone had run it over then attempted to hide that fact by smothering it in icing (icing fixes all, my ass). In what can only be described as 'doctor handwriting', a message of 'Congratulations on Becoming Chief Resident!' was scrawled in the middle of the road kill – I mean cake.

As realization dawned, I couldn't help the feeling of disbelief coupled with slight indifference that overtook me. I required four years to get through medical school, on top of four years of residency; at what point did I stop caring about all the landmarks to becoming a fully qualified physician? I realise with horror that everything that I have gone through has finally taken a toll on my emotional well-being; I have become a cynic.

With a smile, I walk further into the room, so as not to alert anyone of my deliberation, and thank everyone for the sentiments. Chopper, aka my partner in crime, aka my rival in the medical field, aka my best friend, stands in front of me and before I can say anything, he hugs me.

"I don't fully appreciate the meaning behind this celebration, but perhaps the significance isn't lost on you." He says, as he lets go of me and holds me at arm's length. Truly, if anyone wanted to congratulate another, they should take lessons from him. I try for a sarcastic smile, but end up with an awkward half-grimace, half-crazed smirk.

"While I don't have a witty rebuttal planned for this moment, I can see how words aren't necessary for us to tell who the winner here is. And in terms of the significance, well, any form of excellence should be celebrated to allow everyone to forget the mediocrity of their lives." Letting that hang, I begin to sober up and wait for him to begin psychoanalysing me, though truthfully I have no patience for that right now.

I swiftly move away from him and into the centre of the room where the decomposed cake is and cut myself a slice before any of the other doctors or nurses try for a conversation. Chocolate, ah, as I am a woman I must love chocolate, clever. Vanilla would have been a wiser choice; I've never had much of a sweet tooth, but vanilla I can just about manage.

Before I can make my escape from the room with my piece, the Chief of Medicine, appropriately named Doctorine, approaches me from behind and says rather ominously, "And now, this is the sweetest and most glorious day that ever my eyes did see."

I raise an eyebrow at that, "Donald Cargill?"

She laughs, not caring that it sounds more like a witches cackle than a demure giggle. "You catch on quick, young one!"

"There's hardly anything glorious about this day." I reply derisively with a snort, deciding it's not worth risking my health and putting the cake to one side, hoping no one notices.

At the risk of sounding callous, I honestly have no interest in having these small endeavours blown out of proportion every single year and while I do not intentionally put myself in a bad mood, these gatherings tend to remind me how much farther I need to get before I have truly accomplished anything with my life. I do not, however, want others to feel as if I do not appreciate their commemorations because I feel their intentions were in the right place…expressing this is much harder than I expected though.

"You know, I remember a younger Nami coming in here, perky little intern that she was, and I remember the irritation. _Great, _I said, _more annoying, snot-nosed, little rich brats that I have to look after, as if I don't have patients I need to worry about! _But you, you were different."

"Because I wasn't a rich brat?" I question with feigned innocence.

Rolling her eyes, she retorts, "I'm glad you didn't deny the annoying aspect; that, and you were enthusiastic. Do you know how many enthusiastic kids come through those doors? None, most are worried that statistics prove that 1 in 3 patients they look over will die, and every intern freaks out that more than once in their time as doctors they'll kill a patient…it's sad now that I think about it, the lily-livered bunch of so-called doctors worrying that they'll kill patients, ironically they end up killing them with their lack of confidence in their abilities to save those patient's lives. And then you come out of some no name college and take this hospital by storm; _my dream is to save as many people as I can, however I can!_"

I remember those words, part of the reason I made it so far was because of that dream, yet she says it almost mockingly. Still, in comparison to all the praise that can be picked out of that lecture, that mockery was more true to her character. As Chief of Medicine, she had the authority to make or break any person's dreams of being a doctor, and holding onto that belief I pleaded her for mentorship only to be ridiculed on every account. That's not to say that she didn't take me under her wing, so to speak. With every passing day, I found myself pushed towards more challenging patients – the ones no intern dared approach – and after the arguments and the suffering at her hands, I managed to better myself…all of which led to my misfortune of being nominated as the Chief Resident. Of course, I get a pay rise, I get better benefits and I get to deal the cruelty that was dealt to me (not that I would, but the idea in theory sounds fascinating), so in essence there was something to look forward to…platonically. What more perks do I receive out of this seemingly exceptional promotion (which was really nothing more than a glorified change in job titles)? Well, if I barely had a social life as a resident, I would expect that as Chief Resident I could kiss even that little bit of freedom goodbye. Days off? Forget it. Sitting in the cafeteria and sneaking off with as many muffins as I could carry? ...I hardly got away with that as things stood now.

With a non-committal sigh, I reply to Doctorine's earlier statement with a query of my own.

"When did it become so difficult?"

Did I mean difficulty in pursuing that dream or is it the fact that I have lost interest altogether? Perhaps it is my vagueness or I may unknowingly have touched upon a taboo subject, but Doctorine grows quiet suddenly and her expression becomes hard.

"Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't."

I don't notice as she walks away, I'm much more concerned with the meaning behind her parting words.

"Hah, Brett Butler? She's losing inspiration if she's starting to quote actresses." I mutter, shaking my head.


End file.
